Cynthia Willard-Lewis refuses to concede race for New Orleans City Council at-large seat

Though she has offered no evidence of potential voting irregularities in Saturday's runoff for an at-large seat on the New Orleans City Council, Cynthia Willard-Lewis still refused to concede the election Tuesday to City Councilwoman Stacy Head, whose narrow win was certified earlier in the day by the city's chief elections officer. Several hours after the certification was completed, a spokeswoman for Willard-Lewis issued a statement that said "in the next few days," the former councilwoman and state legislator will "review options available to the campaign under Louisiana election law."

Stacy Head, left, and Cynthia Willard-Lewis.

Willard-Lewis offered no further details about her plans.

She has until Wednesday to request a reinspection of the voting machines or a recount of mailed and faxed absentee ballots; under state law, those reviews would take place Thursday. She has until April 30 to contest the election before Secretary of State Tom Schedler certifies Head as the winner.

To contest the vote, Willard-Lewis would have to demonstrate that she would have won if not for "substantial irregularities or error" or "fraud or other unlawful activities in the conduct of the election." No allegations have surfaced that improper campaigning transpired Saturday, or that voters at any of the city's 366 polling places had trouble casting their ballots.

Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal Court Arthur Morrell on Tuesday morning certified that Head earned 281 more votes than Willard-Lewis, the same margin reached by the unofficial count Saturday night. About 55,293 votes were cast.

"There was no discrepancy," Morrell said. "The count was exactly the same."

Added James Gray, chairman of the Orleans Parish Board of Election Supervisors: "The results we found were what had been reported earlier and frankly what we expected to find."

Tuesday's inspection, known as "opening the machines," happens automatically after every election to verify the ballots tallied by voting machines at the city's 366 precincts and at three early-voting locations.

Given Head's apparent razor-thin victory, Willard-Lewis had vowed Saturday night to seek a recount. But as of late Tuesday, Morrell said she had not asked him to reinspect the 732 voting machines used in the election or to recount 85 hand-written ballots.

On Saturday night, Willard-Lewis said the vote tally was "so tight, with less than one vote per precinct" differentiating the two candidates, that she felt the race was "too close to call."

She added that her campaign wanted "to look at the real numbers this week coming up. And then we just tell everyone, just stay tuned for further announcements."

Asked by WWL-TV whether she intended to ask for a recount, Willard-Lewis said, "Yes, I'm sure we will be."

Morrell said Tuesday that he was in the midst of fulfilling a public-records request for copies of the "tapes" from every voting machine. Each printout shows the number of votes recorded for each candidate in the race.